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| Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(19 May 1877)
... I am not, after all, making a collection.
Yesterday Uncle Cor sent me a batch of old paper, like the
sheet I'm using to write to you, won't it be wonderful for
working on? There's a lot of work to do already and it isn't
easy, but with steadfastness one should get used to it. I hope
to keep in mind the ivy “which stealeth on though he
wears no wings” as the ivy creeps along the walls, so the
pen must crawl over the paper.
Every day I do some walking. Recently I went through a very
pleasant district - when I walked down the Buitenkant to the
Dutch railway station one could see men working there and
alongside the Ij with sand carts - and went along all sorts of
little narrow streets with gardens full of ivy. It had a feel
of Ramsgate about it. At the station I turned left, where most
of the windmills are, on to a road along a canal with elm
trees. Everything there reminds me of Rembrandt's etchings.
One of these days I shall make a start with Streckfuss's
Algemene... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(5 August 1879)
... which is almost half full already.
In Brussels I bought from a Jewish book dealer another big
sketchbook of old Dutch paper.
Shall I see you? How welcome you would be. I promise you
Dickens's Les Temps Difficiles if you will come to fetch it;
otherwise I will send it to you when I have a chance. À
Dieu. A handshake in thought, and believe me always,
Yours truly, Vincent
... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(July 1881)
... for you to carry,
bring some with you then. I mean, white Ingres paper. I
bought some of it from Brussels and worked on it with pleasure,
and it is very well suited to pen drawing, especially for a
reed pen. Now I have been without it for quite a time, and here
I can only get smooth paper without any grain (unless I take
Whatman or Harding, but that is too expensive for sketches -
the Ingres paper costs 10 centimes a sheet, I think). Well, try
your best to put as large a package of it as you can in your
bag, and you will give me more pleasure than with anything
else.
I have made another drawing in the Liesbosch ,
and now it has become quite hot - too hot to sit on the
heath by day - so I work at home now, and am copying the
drawings by Holbein from the Bargues .
Remembering what you told me once, I have tried to draw a few portraits after
photographs , and I think this is good practice.
As I asked you before, write whenever you can and receive a
handshake in... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(c. 12 October 1881)
... trying to get a
horse and a donkey.
That thick Ingres paper I mentioned is especially good for
painting in watercolour, and it is much cheaper than any other.
Still, I am not in a hurry for it because I brought a supply
from The Hague, but alas, it's plain white.
Well, you see I am hard at work.
Uncle goes to The Hague tomorrow and will perhaps talk over
with Mauve the question of my going up to see him again.
And now adieu. I have walked very far today and am very
tired, but I would not let the letter go without enclosing a
word.
I hope things are well with you, a handshake in thought,
Yours sincerely, Vincent
... | Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh
(12-15 October 1881)
... day or so, I am
replying right away.
I'm so glad you've sent the Ingres paper. I've still got
some left, but not the right colour.
I was happy to hear what Mr. Tersteeg said about my
drawings, and certainly no less glad that you saw progress
yourself in the sketches I sent you. If it is indeed so, I mean
to work to such an effect that neither you nor Mr. T. will have
any reason to take back your more favourable opinions. I shall
do my very best not to let you down.
The artist always comes up against resistance from nature in
the beginning, but if he really takes her seriously he will not
be put off by that opposition, on the contrary, it is all the
more incentive to win her over - at heart, nature and the
honest draughtsman are as one. (Nature is most certainly
“intangible,” yet one must come to grips with her
and do so with a firm hand.) And having wrestled and struggled
with nature for some time now, I find her more yielding and
submissive, not that I have... |
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